Goodbye old barn

The A Street barn. 3.4.2018

Remember that scene in 'It's A Wonderful Life' where Jimmy Stewart realizes the joy of living and runs through Bedford Falls screaming, "Merry Christmas, you wonderful old building and loan," along with the movie house, and Mr. Potter, etc. on his way home to Mary? Well... think the exact opposite as you read the title here.

This barn has stood across A Street from my parents house - the house where I was born and raised - my entire life. It is scheduled to be torn down possibly as early as today, or next Monday at the latest.

BUDA VISIT
We took a quick trip back to Buda this weekend for what was originally planned as a simple visit with my parents by me, Jane, Carrie and the grandkids. We all rode together in "Grandma Esther's" van, but I found out Friday that the people who own the barn wanted it cleaned out by Monday. So I spent most of Saturday removing contents that had been collected there over the past 55 years. It was a bit of a sad and stressful time for yours truly. Still is.

OWNERS, CARETAKERS AND THE LIKE
While my parents never owned the barn, or pastures surrounding it, we have always been the ones to take care of the property. When my parents moved into their house - the only house they've lived in since before I was born in 1962 - they apparently worked out a deal with the owners at the time. The people across the street owned it, but didn't use it. My dad liked horses, and raised and broke his share, so he was allowed use of the property in return for taking care of it. The property has passed on through a couple generations of family, but the current widow is only related by marriage. Rumor has it a daughter(s) is the one behind having her remove the fencing that had been in place all this time (which my dad maintained all these years), and now the tearing down of the barn. No one seems to know their plans - if they intend to sell the property as lots, or what - but it seems to me they could have handled the situation a little better. Sure, they own the property, but it didn't show a lot of respect for the neighbor who maintained and used it all these years to not give any advance notice to vacate.

THE BARN
Anyway, while I never fully appreciated it all the years I spent putting bales of hay in the mow, or feeding the horses, fixing fence, mowing, and whatever else needed done around the area... it seemed to hit me unusually hard this weekend. It's such a cool old barn. It's a step back in time. The structure is built with a mix of slightly-to-barely milled lumber from another time and culture. Some of the timbers are nothing but trees with the branches lopped. It has been repaired and maintained not by skilled craftsman, but in a manner suited more to the depression-era old west. Boards were not measured and cut to fit, but pieced together from the closest suitable scrap laying around. You didn't know if it was going to be kicked loose again the next day or not, and certainly didn't care what anyone thought of your craftsmanship. The doors all hung crooked; pieces of wire and twine were as much a part of the fabric as age-old manure from horses and other wild critters who called the place home. Inside the main door was a supporting stump of a post holding thousands of cut baling twine from the years of hay I used to fling into the three side-by-side feeding troughs. Nothing was straight, nothing polished, but it was functional and had a rugged beauty you couldn't possibly manufacture today. Upstairs was a near-empty mow where loads of cussing sweat had been dumped with each seasonal load of hay. All that remains are broken windows and animal dung, and dust. Lots of dust. I suppose there to remind me of all I'd forgotten that once used to be good and true and right.

Well, there's no point trying to wax poetic on such haunting reminders of a forgotten past . It is what it is, as they say. Time waits for no man. Life goes on. And that it does...

A TINY APOLOGY
It was ironic, as my helper for the day was "Tiny." He showed up out of curiosity as much as wanting to scrounge whatever he could for scrap. I let him take what he wanted, because he's a good neighbor to my parents. What I found surprising was, he said this was the first time he had ever been in the barn. His parents lived next to my parents in houses built by the same man (with near-identical floorplans) longer ago than my 55 years. When Tiny's dad passed away, he moved into the place. He was the oldest of the neighbor kids when I grew up, so I don't remember interacting with him much. He was always pretty quiet, as he still is in his post-cancerous sixty-some years. So it was ironic to me that he'd never been in this barn across the street from where he'd spent almost all his life, but also because he was the one helping me prepare it for burial. He's a large man, definately old-school, but with a gentleness of life about him not readily apparent in his downcast gaze. It was his younger brother who used to mess with the neighborhood kids, and while I don't remember ever talking to Tiny then, I can vividly recall seeing him beat the living shit out of his brother more times than not. I never really thought about whether any of those beatings had anything to do with what he knew was going on. However, as two old geezers wheezing in the ancient dust of our forgotten youth, it finally made sense. Was this his way of apologizing? I don't know, but I think it's a good possibility.

AND SO IT GOES...
So... the barn is gone. If not actually, at least figuratively for me. It was a rough weekend emotionally. It's usually difficult enough for me to stay mentally engaged answering the barrage of questions and dealing with small-talk. I'm starting to lose my sense of nostalgia about "home" though too. Part of me is ready to turn the page, and I don't really even care to return. But I know I will. Maybe this is what's it's like to move into the next phase of life. I don't much life it so far. That's nothing new though. It seems nothing is new there either. And time passes slowly...